Character Advancement
Character progression is an important part of any RPG system. Ideally, I want this system to have continuous progression of the characters, such that the player feels they are getting better with experience, as well as gaining new abilities with experience. Mastery Points The main currancy of leveling up will be "Mastery points", which will be handed out by the GM (Game master) at the end of each game session based on how much the group accomplished. The rule of thumb for a game master should be between 3 and 7 points a game for fairly slow long term campaigns and 3-5 points/encounter that session for a faster progression game. Mastery points can be used to advance skills, gain traits/powers, advance abilities and gain skills. Mastery points cannot be carried forward between games, they represent spur-of-the-moment "eureka" moments for your character which gives them some new profound understanding that helps them make the most of the "training period" that occurs between games. ''META: This is an effective way for the DM to rebalance his party if they are getting too rich or too powerful. Since they control the number of Mastery points and the availability/cost of training. '' Training Periods Training periods typically occur between games sessions, although this is up to the GM's discretion. During a training period players spend their mastery points to increase skills, hit points, and gain talents and spell, or they can increase a single attribute (in place of all those other options). Each skill can only be increased once per training period, as well as hit points, and only one talent and one spell can be learned per period. If your game session happens to end in a city or location where a training facility/instructor of sufficient skill is available you may be able to afford supervised training, effectively increasing your mastery pool. The recommended cost is at least 500 gold x the new mastery point total they hope to have at the end of training. Ex/ Steve's session just ended, he was given 4 mastery points to immediately apply to his character, but he wants to gain a talent and train some skills, the total of which will cost 6 mastery points. Therefore, he choses to pay a local school 3,000 gold (a hefty sum) for some supervised training. Advancing skills Skills are advanced by spending the appropriate number of mastery points for the type of skill you are advancing, 2 for base skills and 1 for advanced skills. Upon paying the appropriate point value your character reflects on their experience using that skill by rolling a d100 against their current rank in the skill, a success is a roll that is higher than the current skill rank. Each skill can be trained only once in a single training period, i.e. you cannot spend twice as many mastery points to train the same skill twice. Ex/ Steve has spent the day fighting with a one-handed rapier, at the end of his session he spends a mastery point he earned reflecting on one-handed combat. Currently his rank is a 40 in the skill, if he rolls higher than 40 he gets to add 1d8 to this value, lower he gets only a +1. As part of your background (including race and traits) a character may gain aptitude for certain skills, granting a +1d8+1 on a success and +2 on a failure. Base skills advance at a rate of +1d4 on a success and 0 on a fail. Advance skills advance at a rate of +1d8 on a success and 1 on a fail. Hit Points Combatative characters may choose to train their bodies to increase their ability to absorb damage. Hit points can be increased by exchanging a number of master points equal to 0.1x their current hit point total rounded up to the next integer. Hit points always increase by your FRT, up to a maximum of 10*FRT Ex/ Steve has 14 HP, it costs him 2 mastery points to increase his hit points. His FRT is 7, therefore he now has 21 HP (his next increase will cost him 3 mastery points). Hit points can only be increased once/training period. Advancing Stats At the great sacrifice of abandoning all skill training and focusing entirely on training their mind or body, a character can increase one of their stats / training period (the time between games). They must have sufficient points equal to the new value they wish to achieve and cannot gain anyother training. Ex/ Steve has a strength of 5, at the end of a session he is given 7 mastery points. Steve choses to train up his strength to 6, requiring at least 6 mastery points, this is the only training he can do this session, therefore the extra point is wasted. Talents Talents are abilities that can be learned to grant new combat options. Each talent has unique requirements and mastery point costs. Groups of related talents are pooled into paths, which guide the combat style of your character (ex/ the duelest path incorporates talents that all use the one weapon fighting skill, while Great weapon fighter has talents related to two-weapon fighting). A character can only gain one talent per training, but they can still gain skill advancements and spells if they have additional mastery points. Spells Mastery points can also be used to learn new spells. Each spell costs a certain number of mastery points and often have particular prerequisits to learning them. Spells learned this way represent spells your character has worked out for themselves, they may also be able to find instructors of sufficient level that would be willing to teach them the spells for a price, or scrolls/manuals that would reduce the cost of learning the spell. Only one spell can be learned per training period. There is no limit on how many spells a character can learn, but if they wish to forget a spell they already know during training they can regain half the points spent learning it. Power points (POW) POW can be increased once per training period by a given dice size. The size of the roll depends on the points the character is willing to spend. Navigation Gameplay Character Creation Talents Spells Main Page Equipement